Gnarly Trombone: In Kansas it doesn’t take much to earn the moniker ‘mountain’

Just for a few days, through Kansas, Missouri, and into Illinois to visit my wife's crazy cousins.

Anyway, it was a good trip. We drove because we didn't want to sit on an airplane breathing other people's flu germs for hours.

Anyway, we're here, and as I said, it was a good trip.

I especially enjoy driving through Kansas, because they have:

» The World's Largest Ball of Twine.

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» The World's Deepest Hand-Dug Well.

» The World's Largest Prairie Dog. (Hint: It's not real. It's made of cement.)

Anyway, that's what we see when we drive on I-25 through Kansas, but this time we drove I-70, which wasn't bad, either. Kansas doesn't have as beautiful scenery as Colorado, but it has other great things.

For instance, we drove past Mt. Sunflower, Kansas' highest mountain, on the edge of the Colorado state line. Mt. Sunflower is a whopping 4,039 feet in elevation, which means — if we're using that low altitude and calling them mountains — we could have a Mt. Greeley.

And there were hawks everywhere and VERY FEW oil wells.

And there were the signs:

» "McDonald's — Just 60 miles ahead!"

» "Exit 60 — 104 miles"

» "Al's Chickenette"

» "Oz Museum … 100 Rooms!"

» "Love and Laughter! Share It!"

» "Dunkard Brethren Church"

» "McDonald's — Just 40 miles ahead!"

» There was one sign with no words. Just a painting of Jesus holding a stalk of Kansas wheat.

» "PIONEER VILLAGE! Turn north, 167 miles."

And so it went, learning about Kansas by passing their signs and cornfields and winter wheat, which was turning the brown earth a light green.

Our politicians in Washington, D.C., need to do this. Ban them from planes and make them drive to their home states. Drive past the good signs and rolling plains and soaring hawks and church steeples rising from the flat earth in every little town. Drive through the cities and see the way the world is.

And make them drive back to Washington.

Not only will they learn to appreciate our country more …

… it might keep them out of D.C. a while longer, so they can't do as much damage.

— The name Gnarly Trombone was taken from an 1871 Cincinnati newspaper that misread Horace Greeley's handwritten name of the Greeley Tribune. Mike Peters is a retired Tribune staff writer. He may be emailed at mpeters@greeleytribune.com.